Royal Philips Electronics announced a new small-sized motor driver IC for high-speed DVD+RW (DVD+ReWritable) applications. The Philips SA56202 motor driver is approximately half the size of competing solutions, with a small footprint that is ideal for such portable consumer and data applications as DVD+RW recorders and data drives for the PC market. This highly integrated one-chip device has a 3-phase brushless, hall-commutated spindle driver, 2-channel stepper motor driver, and 4 linear channels for the tray and 3D actuators, providing customers with the performance needed for high-speed applications while reducing component count and system cost.

The DVD recorder chip market (in particular) is expected to grow at a CAGR of 63 percent from 2002 to 2007, according to industry analyst firm IDC, Feb 2003. To meet the changing performance demands of this quickly growing market, the SA56202 motor driver has been designed to support drive speeds of 8x and 16x speeds, offering drive manufacturers a quick transition to next-generation technology. The SA56202 motor driver is used in the Philips Nexperia(TM) reference design for 8x DVD Recordable applications that facilitate customer design-in and system development, while accelerating time to market.

At high speeds, thermal management presents a substantial challenge for designers of portable consumer and data applications. To overcome this challenge, the patented Philips design integrates active braking technology -- the industry's fastest, most efficient form of braking -- into the SA56202. With active braking in the SA56202, disks can brake from full speed to a complete stop in a linear, controlled manner. In fact, the SA56202 can brake to a full stop in approximately half the time of competing solutions (from 11,320 rpm to 0 rpm in only 2.8 seconds). The Philips SA56202 also has a user-selectable current limiter, to limit thermal dissipation during (fast) braking. Furthermore, with the Philips device, the braking energy is recuperated by transferring it back to the power supply, resulting in less heat dissipation during braking and better overall performance. This is in contrast to competing drivers that employ "short" braking and dissipate the braking energy into the driver device itself as heat. This wasted heat in the driver poses a serious risk of thermal shutdown or breakdown.

The 56-pin HTSSOP Philips motor driver IC has a footprint of only 6.1mm by 14 mm. To house an IC in a package this small, it is necessary to use a special process to deliver high performance and small form factor. By using an advanced BCDMOS (Bi-Polar CMOS DMOS) process, different aspects of the chips can be optimized -- such as delivering the required high voltage (12V) outputs along with the drive strength and response of the integrated drivers in a small form factor.

Pricing and Availability

Samples of the SA56202 motor driver are available now and are priced at $1.25 for 250K units per year. Volume production is scheduled for August 2003. For more information visit http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/.